


Tender

by songlin



Series: Celestial Bodies [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alpha!John, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bonding, Fluff and Angst, Frottage, M/M, Omega Verse, Omega!Sherlock, Past Relationship(s), Relationship Negotiation, Reunions, Smut, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-17
Updated: 2012-10-17
Packaged: 2017-11-16 13:01:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songlin/pseuds/songlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson did not think of Sherlock Holmes for ten years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tender

**Author's Note:**

> _Theme: Hopeless Wanderer by Mumford and Sons_
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> For the record, John and Sherlock are both thirty-five here. I figure John is probably older by a few months, but having grown up together they can’t possibly have the age difference they do in the series. Additionally, you’ll note that parts of the story align more with the unaired pilot version. This is because I find it absolutely ridiculous almost to the point of being out of character that Sherlock couldn’t figure out it was the cab driver earlier in the aired version of Study in Pink. Given the opportunity to change it back, I’m damn well going to.
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> This was promised to my Tumblr followers at songlinwrites for when I reached 200 followers. There was a vote on which of several fics should be the Ultimate Celebration one, and this won! I'm at 198, but I really wanted to get it up on my birthday, so here it is. :)

** whatever our souls are made of **

_“_ _And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helpmate, his like.’”_

\---

“I don’t think we’ve ruined us.”

They hadn’t. Not yet.

\---

John tries not to think of him.

His girlfriends (and they were always omega females after, always) tried to convince him to focus on the best parts, to remember him fondly, assured him that he wouldn’t hurt forever. But fifteen years later, John still dreams of him sometimes and wakes up gasping. It hurts to think of him. It hurts not to think of him too, but it’s more of a dull ache. Muscle soreness as opposed to internal bleeding. Phantom limb pain.

So he packed his memories in a box labeled “Do Not Touch,” buried it in the back of his mind, and ran halfway across the world to get away. John doesn’t even think of him in the hospital in Kabul, or when they fly him back to England because he’s picked up a truly nasty infection that the doctors in Afghanistan are fairly positive will kill him if he doesn’t see some specialists pronto.

John does not think of him once, except for the dreams.

\---

John has three types of dreams.

There are the desert dreams: the pop-pop of distant semiautomatics and the smell of cooked flesh with gasoline and the pain-wracked faces of the boys and girls who died under John’s hands. John expects these dreams and brings them to his therapist, who tells him to start a blog so he can write about everything that happens to him. Says it’ll ground him in the here and now. John never mentions that he’d rather not be grounded in the here and now.

Nor does he mention the other dreams: those of blue-white skin riddled tiny, purple pockmarks, haloed with starbursts of yellowed bruising; of blood matting in dark, curly hair; of bottles of small white pills spilled onto cheap linoleum floors.

These are the dreams from which John wakes gasping.

They are not the dreams that hurt.

The worst are the dreams where those speckled arms are clean and whole and wrapped around John’s waist, where John crushes that dark, curly hair under his fingers while he lies on that cheap linoleum floor with a hand on his chest and a low, rich voice in his ear.

Sometimes when John wakes from those dreams, he nearly calls a name in the darkness. But every time, he catches himself, clamps his mouth shut, and files the dream away in that box in the back of his mind.

\---

There is another word, one that John does not _ever_ think if he can help it.

One syllable, four letters, starts with a B, rhymes with _pond_.

Small word, but huge. All-encompassing. Consuming.

\---

_“You’re the second person who’s said that to me today.”_

It could work. Mike said the omega man suppresses his heats, and doesn’t John prefer women anyways?

It’d be an unusual living situation, but John’s game. He can’t afford to be too picky, after all.

\---

The lab is bright, clean, sterile. It’s oddly comforting. After so many years in hospitals, John doesn’t feel quite right anywhere he couldn’t perform an appendectomy if he had to.

“Bit different from my day,” John says, just to make conversation.

The man on the other end of the room straightens. “Mike, can I borrow your phone? Mine’s--”

He sees John and goes suddenly very, very still.

John, for his part, has been frozen for at least three and a half seconds.

This feels _exactly_ like a traumatic pneumothorax, and John would know. That, or the aftermath of an explosion, when you can’t pull in a big enough breath without it flaring into pain and your ears are ringing and everyone sounds like they’re talking from very far away.

“John,” Sherlock says. It’s not a question.

John shakes his head. He holds out his phone.

“Here. Use mine.”

Sherlock accepts it as if it might explode and doesn’t take his eyes off John until he’s out of arm’s reach.

“Iraq?” he says as he hands it back.

“Afghanistan,” says John. His throat feels dry.

Sherlock is avoiding eye contact. “Congratulate Harry on her recovery.”

John nods tersely.

“Shame about her wife.”

“Clara’s a nice girl,” John says. “She deserves better.”

A ghost of a smile flickers around Sherlock’s mouth. “I can see you’re desperate for a flatshare. You abhor sharing close quarters with alphas and you know very well you’re not likely to find many other omegas willing to live with you. I’d at least see the place. It’s quite nice; I’ve gotten a special deal. The landlady’s husband got himself sentenced to death in Florida a few years back.”

Despite himself, John is interested. “What, and you saved him from being executed?”

Sherlock smirks. “On the contrary. I ensured it.”

John’s face splits into a grin.

\---

The flat is very nice indeed. Sherlock has already moved into it.

He shrugs. “If you didn’t bite, I had other ways of getting the money.”

John flinches at that. Sherlock grimaces.

“John,” he says, “I’m not--I’ve been--I’m...clean.” He fidgets, scratching at the back of his neck and avoiding eye contact. “I swear.”

John nods tightly. “Figured Mycroft wouldn’t let you loose unless.”

There’s a bite to his voice, a whiff of bitterness. He hates the taste of it in his mouth, but refuses to regret it, not even when Sherlock sneers and turns his head.

“As if _Mycroft--”_

John winces. “Don’t, Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s just opening his mouth to respond when Mrs Hudson reappears, talking about the suicides from the papers, and the tension slackens. Sherlock looks at the window and grins, and a moment later there’s a detective in the doorway giving Sherlock directions to a crime scene.

As soon as the detective is out of earshot, Sherlock throws up his fists, triumphant.

“Oh, it is _Christmas!”_

John, to his surprise, is also smiling. Sherlock’s excitement is inherently infectious. He ought to be resentful.

Sherlock shrugs his coat on and wraps his scarf around his neck. “We’re out, Mrs Hudson. Shouldn’t be back until late.”

John is already on his feet and fetching his coat when he says, “‘We’?”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “You heard me, I need an assistant. Coming?”

_I shouldn’t,_ John thinks.

“Oh, _God,_ yes.”

\---

Sherlock takes him to look at a dead woman in a garish pink suit and then spends half an hour digging through rubbish skips for her case.

“You’re sure I shouldn’t go fetch the police?” John says as Sherlock scales a fire escape.

“There’s no time for that!” he calls from a rooftop. “There’s a murderer on the loose!”

“Kind of my point,” John mutters. “Look, I’m going back to my place. I’ll call you, yeah?”

Sherlock does not respond. John takes that as an affirmative.

He limps his way back to the main road. Three pay phones ring as he walks past them, which he ignores, until he tries to hail a cab and none of them stop.

He picks up the fourth phone. “Nice to hear from you, Mycroft.”

“John,” Mycroft says, like it’s the genus name of a particularly distasteful rodent.

“Very impressive, all that,” John says, “but a little unnecessary. I’ve got a phone. You could’ve just...phoned me. On my phone.”

“Get into the car, Doctor,” Mycroft says as it pulls up to the curb.

There’s a gorgeous omega female sitting in the backseat, occupied with her Blackberry. John would flirt, but he’s quite certain everything he says is going straight to her boss.

“Any point in asking where I’m going?”

She looks up from her mobile to give him a pitying look. “None at all.” She holds out a business card. “Mr Holmes would like you to have this.”

John takes it. It’s a phone number and nothing else. No name, no job title. Typical.

Of course he ends up in an empty parking garage. John imagines Mycroft keeps a few on hand for just such situations, along with a score of abandoned warehouses, disused power plants, darkened alleyways and underground storage facilities.

Mycroft is leaning on one of two chairs set out facing each other and looking down his nose at John. His hairline’s receded since John last saw him, his face a bit more careworn. Otherwise, he looks just like he did at seventeen. He’s always had that civil servant look to him, that aristocratic air, as if deigning to speak with you was stooping below his station.

He points his umbrella at a chair. “Take a seat, John.”

John does not take the seat, preferring to lean on his cane. “Is this the ‘break my brother’s heart and I’ll break your face’ talk? _Again?”_

Mycroft smiles thinly. “Oh, I think we’re past that, don’t you?”

“See, I _did,_ but then you threatened me into a car and took me to a darkened garage. And I _do_ know for a _fact_ that you’re familiar with quite a lot of people with numbers for names who could make sure my body would never be found, so I don’t know if you can _blame_ me for leaping to conclusions.”

Mycroft chuckles. “Oh, John. I have _so_ missed you.”

John’s brow furrows.

“Is it so difficult to believe I might simply wish to _chat?”_

John raises an eyebrow. It’s quite eloquent.

Mycroft sighs and taps his umbrella on the ground. “It _is_ about Sherlock.”

“I’m really not going to spy on him for you, Mycroft.”

Mycroft inclines his head. “I had expected as much. It concerns the...nature...of your relationship with my brother.”

John’s jaw tightens.

“You are, of course, aware of the concept of bonds.”

John’s leg trembles, but he still does not sit.

“I can see from your right leg that the thought has occurred.”

John grits his teeth.

Mycroft sighs and sits in the chair he has been leaning on. “Please, John, you have not so much as broached the topic with your therapist, and it would be a _colossal_ mistake to continue without considering it. I assure you, I have little desire to suffer through the conversation myself, but where my brother is concerned, you will find I will suffer through _quite a lot._ You are not the only alpha with a claim on Sherlock Holmes. Please, _sit.”_

This time, John does.

“I understand that you and my brother briefly considered terminating your relationship before you left for university.”

John nods. “Yeah. I mean, I was going to London and he was going off to Oxford. It made the most sense.”

“But you nevertheless decided to continue your relationship.” Mycroft’s shoulders sag. It looks _wrong,_ somehow, like seeing a compound fracture through the skin. “Why was that, exactly?”

John swallows thickly. “We agreed to--we didn’t want--erm. We tried, we discussed it, but whenever we tried to consider a nonexclusive relationship, it--we--it didn’t--”

“Yes, I know,” Mycroft says heavily. “I’ve heard it described as a sort of madness that rises in you at the mere thought of...sharing.”

John nods. His chest positively _aches_. “Yeah. Something like that.”

It was _exactly_ like that. They hadn’t been able to discuss it without John imagining some faceless stranger pinning Sherlock to the bed and biting at the back of Sherlock’s neck as he forced his knot in deep while Sherlock clawed at the sheets, his face frozen in a howl of pleasure, and it made John’s heartbeat thud in his ears and his stomach _roil_ and a voice in his head shout _“mine mine MINE.”_

“‘Subtle fire streams beneath my skin. I cannot see with my eyes, or hear through buzzing ears. Sweat runs down, a shiver shakes me deep,’” Mycroft quotes. “Sappho.”

“Smart woman.”

Mycroft gives him a rueful smile. “Indeed. If you would, John, your time at university--I know Sherlock’s side, but I am well aware of how biased an account that is. If you don’t mind…”

“No,” John says. It is at least seventy percent the truth. “It’s...I can...yeah.” He rolls his neck, cracking the tendons.

“We visited pretty often at first. At least once a month, for--you know. One of us could always swing it, be able to take a few days. But...well, you get busy. Me especially. Once I really got into training, it got impossible for me to take time off. Sherlock started suppressing his heats, because he knew there was a chance I couldn’t be around for one. And he--he didn’t have anything to do. I’d never seen him get into so many sulks so often, but there wasn’t any helping it. I had no idea what to do, and you know there’s no talking to him or reasoning with him when he gets like that. It got to where it was constant, and he wasn’t speaking at _all_. Scared me shitless. Almost took him to hospital. Then one day I went for a visit and he was--fine.” John grimaces. “I didn’t suspect anything. Didn’t want to count my blessings.”

Mycroft nods. His face is a mess of pity. It sits strangely on his features. “He wasn’t using intravenously then. There wouldn’t have been visible traces, even to you.”

“Yeah.” John laughs mirthlessly. “He didn’t start injecting until after the first overdose. That was when I found out. I came home from work one day and found him unconscious on the floor next to a bottle of pills. Like a fucking soap opera.” He shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut briefly. “You know what the first thing he said was, after he woke up? ‘I miscalculated the dosage.’”

Mycroft winces.

“I threw a fucking fit right there in the hospital. You know that part. Told him I couldn’t be with him unless he was honest with me. I meant it, too. I didn’t give a bloody fuck about the drugs--well, I did, but you know--I was angry he’d kept them a secret. And that worked. I took some time off to help him through the worst of it, and that was--good. Kind of strangely good, all considered. But then I had to go back to work, and he started up again. He didn’t have anything to _do_. It’s like he says, his mind rebels at stagnation, and I was the only thing he had to keep him--occupied, I guess. Me and his violin. God knows he got nothing out of his coursework. I tried to help him, keep an eye on him, you know, but he wouldn’t _let_ me. We were still part-timing it, you know, since it took him so bloody long to finish at school, and we weren’t really--active.” He swallows. His throat feels tight. “So I didn’t see the track marks. He’d time it, you know, so by the time we had a visit they’d look like just another birthmark.”

“I wouldn’t have noticed myself,” Mycroft says. Shouldn’t be comforting. Is.

“I surprised him,” John continues. “For his birthday. And he was--I knew right off something was--he was acting strange, and then I took off his shirt, and I saw.”

“And that was when you tried to leave.”

John nods. “Yeah. Huge row. I stormed out, remembered a few minutes later I’d left something in his room--don’t even remember what. Came back and found him in the shower, just--” He shuts his eyes. “The walls of the shower were this sort of--rough, cement kind of texture. It must have scraped his head up while he was--bashing it against the tiles, because the whole back of his head was--”

He stops, because his voice breaks, and because he needs to stop _shaking_ long enough to speak, _God_.

“The whole time we were waiting for the ambulance, he kept apologizing. For the drugs, and for everything--kept saying he’d wanted to be _good_ for me--” John clears his throat. It echoes like a gunshot. “I enlisted a week later. Didn’t speak to him again until yesterday.”

Mycroft nods. His face is a mask of grief, or as much as it ever is. “You can imagine that I saw to Sherlock.”

John fights back the instinct to spit at him.

“I don’t have to tell you that what he did--the way he was then--was largely the consequences of an unstimulated mind. That is no longer a problem. However, a significant factor was...confusion. You know our family is not the most...emotionally open.”

John snorts.

“Consequently, Sherlock believed-- _decided_ to believe--that his feelings were...unusual, managed them in the way that seemed to him most suitable, and never had the opportunity to recognize them for what they were. It’s not entirely unexpected. It is, however, quite surprising to me that _you_ did not recognize what was happening, Dr. Watson.”

John’s eyes narrow. “What _exactly_ are you implying?”

“I believe you know precisely what I am implying.”

John’s heartbeat pounds in his ears. “I’m expected to jump straight to that? Because we tiny normal people are just a mess of emotions on legs? _No one_ \--bonds anymore, Mycroft. Not outside of--paperback novels and--King bloody Arthur--”

“You did,” he says calmly. “Didn’t you?”

John feels sick.

“An attachment so strong that to be apart from your beloved drives you nearly mad? The driving need to care and provide for your partner? And all a step beyond mere sentiment, into measurable, biological transformation? That is _textbook,_ John.” Mycroft shakes his head. “The modern world does not accommodate it easily, to be sure, but it cannot be denied--or broken. Am I wrong to assume that you have not had a successful relationship these past ten years? That you have dreamt of him often? Quite likely, that you have physically felt his absence?”

“Fuck off, Mycroft,” John snarls.

“Sherlock has. He would never admit it-- _I_ regret to admit it--but he was better with you.”

John scoffs. “So the heroin was him at his best?”

“You know that’s not true,” Mycroft says softly. “You know what I mean. You remember the way he was.”

John does. He could absolutely _weep_ at the memory, his phantom Sherlock, young and bright and excited. Before the ennui set in, before the tedium of the world weathered him down and drove him to extremes just to--

And John didn’t--

John could have--

He _should_ have--

His phone chimes.

John shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath, digs his mobile out of his coat pocket, and squints down at the screen. It reads: _Baker Street. Come at once if convenient. SH_

He laughs. It sounds soft. Broken. “I’ve been summoned.”

Mycroft nods. “Best get moving then, Dr Watson.”

John shakes his head. “I--why did--”

Mycroft’s lip curls infinitesimally. “As I said,” he says, voice very angular and even, “you are not the only alpha with a claim on Sherlock Holmes.”

John’s phone dings again. _If inconvenient, come anyway. SH_

He laughs. “He’s not changed.”

Mycroft gives him a small smile. “You’d be surprised.”

John gets another text as he’s getting into the car.

_Could be dangerous. SH_

\---

When he returns to Baker Street, Sherlock is lying on the couch with his arm outstretched and his head tipped back, breathing slowly and deeply, face blissfully blank.

John feels like he’s going to be _sick_. It’s like a scene straight out of one of his dreams, _exactly_ what he was afraid of, and he can’t--

He coughs. “Sherlock--”

Sherlock’s eyes fly open immediately. He rolls back his sleeve. “Nicotine patch.”

The panic subsides. As a matter of fact, a smile plays at the corners of John’s mouth. “You quit smoking?”

Sherlock grimaces. “Impossible to sustain the habit in London.”

“Can’t say I’m disappointed.”

“I need you to send a text.”

Rolling his eyes, John digs his mobile out of his pocket. “What number?”

Sherlock waves a hand in the direction of the kitchen. “It’s the table. Type these words exactly: ‘What happened in Lauriston Gardens last night? I must have blacked out.’”

John nods and types and swallows his desperate relief at the sight of the nicotine patches on Sherlock’s bare arm.

A moment later, John gets into a mild strop when he discovers Sherlock had him text a serial killer. He gets over it quickly, and they go out to a restaurant so Sherlock can watch out the window for the murderer he’s lured there.

“I’ll get you a candle for a table,” the owner says with a wink. “It’s more romantic.”

John sighs tragically, but doesn’t protest.

“Don’t stare,” Sherlock says, eyes fixed on the street outside.

“You’re staring.”

“We can’t both stare.”

John rolls his eyes. The owner returns with a candle and a plate of pasta. John scoops up a forkful and chews it thoughtfully.

“Have you--”

“No.”

John puts his fork down, exasperated. “You don’t even know what--”

“You were going to ask if I’ve been with anyone. No. Not for, mm, at least...five years?”

John huffs out a laugh. “Come on.”

Sherlock frowns. His eyes dart away from the window to John, then back again. “I’m not lying.”

“Oh, I know you’re not lying about being with anyone. But don’t try to tell me you can’t list the time down to the hour.”

Sherlock looks surprised for a moment, before a wide grin spreads across his face. “Five years, three months, seventeen days and…” He checks his watch. “...six hours, give or take one or two.”

John snorts. “Christ, no wonder you stayed on suppressants.”

Sherlock narrows his eyes at the window, rather than at John. “Didn’t at first.”

John winces.

Sherlock coughs. “Have you?”

The question catches John mid-chew. He covers his mouth. “Have I--oh.” He swallows. “Erm. Yeah. Sort of. Nothing longer than a couple months. Few, er, shorter relationships.”

Sherlock nods curtly. John smiles, and a moment later realizes he isn’t sure why, so he rubs it off his face with the back of his hand.

The thread of the conversation shifts abruptly a moment later, when Sherlock says the cab across the street hasn’t moved in ten minutes.

“I need your drink,” he says to John, as he takes it and throws it on his face.

_“What--”_

“Angelo,” Sherlock calls, dabbing at the beer with his napkin. “If you would.”

“Got it,” Angelo says. He seizes Sherlock by the lapel and shoves him out the door. “Out of my restaurant, you useless drunk! _Cretino! Ubriacone!”_

John watches Sherlock stumble across the street towards the cab. He leans on the door for a moment, says something through the window.

Suddenly, his long limbs flail in all directions, then go abruptly limp. He collapses against the side of the cab. The driver gets out and hauls him into the backseat, shouting something to a few appalled observers.

“Something’s wrong,” John says, gathering up his coat.

“Oh, do not worry,” Angelo says. “All part of the plan.”

“No,” John says slowly, shaking his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

But by the time he’s out the door, the cab has sped off.

** a friendship caught on fire **

For ten years, Sherlock does not think about John either.

Their methods are not entirely dissimilar, but Sherlock is marginally more successful nevertheless. Like John, Sherlock quarantines all things _John_ in a far corner of his mind, although for him, the image is somewhat more literal.

And like John, he dreams.

Sherlock solves the dreaming problem by minimizing his time spent sleeping and delving further into crime-solving. He suspects that a strong dose of diazepam would go a long way, but Mycroft and Lestrade gave put very strict guidelines related to Sherlock’s sobriety in exchange for access to crime scenes.

The crime-solving was the best idea he’s ever had, really, and he’s _furious_ he didn’t think of it earlier. It’s everything that interests him in one tidy place. Really, he could _hit_ himself for not thinking of it before, for allowing his mental faculties to be taken up by the experimental and theoretical rather than the practical. He must admit also that consuming high amounts of narcotic stimulants, while highly beneficial in the short-term, were also _only_ beneficial to the short-term. Sherlock is better off without the drugs, he knows. He can admit that now, now his head is clearer, now he’s--

_delete_

He’ll never be in the official employ of Scotland Yard, but that’s for the best all around. They don’t need the bad publicity associated with officially endorsing a mercurial ex-coke fiend, and Sherlock doesn’t need the paperwork or petty theft cases or muggings gone bad. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.

It’s fine. It’s all fine.

\---

There is something that scratches at the inside of Sherlock’s skull sometimes, calling from the cellar of his memory palace.

When it grows too loud to bear, he goes off his suppressants for a month and calls someone up to stay with for the duration of his heat cycle. Afterwards, it’s quieter. It could almost pass for silent.

He makes the mistake once of phoning someone he knew at uni. When they’re getting dressed after it’s over, Victor asks.

“What happened to that guy you were with in school? The doctor fellow?”  


Sherlock leaves without saying a word. He does not call Victor again, and soon he stops taking time to have heats. He doesn't need them anyways.

\---

Sometimes he indulges, when it becomes too much to bear. He spreads naked on his bed, touches every inch of his skin and pretends his hands are not his own. He tries to do no more than taste from the memories he tries not to have. But he can’t stop himself, he never can. In the end, he gorges himself on them, _shouts_ the name he tries so hard not to even _think_.

Afterwards, he’s weak and tired and empty. But it barely hurts at all, and that frightens him more than _anything_.

\---

Despite his best efforts, Sherlock wakes one night with a cry and a horrible, burning pain in his chest. It feels like panic and desperation and like being found in a shower with the back of his head bloodied _(delete)_ or waking up in an ambulance and knowing he’s alone _(delete)_ or realizing as the haze envelops his vision that he lost count of how many pills he’d taken, _he,_  of all people,  _lost count_.

Sherlock is relatively certain he’s not having a medical emergency, though when he thinks of what else it might be he firmly chases off all relevant chains of thought. So he goes out onto the terrace of his non-smoking apartment and chain-smokes half a pack of Parliaments. All the same, the ache in his chest doesn’t leave for days.

Seven thousand kilometers away, Captain John Watson bleeds out in a helicopter over the pale desert sands.

\---

Sherlock is going to get Mike Stamford something nice for Christmas. Something in the price range of a very expensive sports car, or a trip to Bali.

Seeing John Watson again should make Sherlock feel ill. He should want to run, or freeze, or be sick. He probably should not feel like the 1812 Overture, or the color yellow, or St. Peter’s Basilica, or sodium and water in chlorine gas.

He wants to say, “Come with me. I’m amazing again, and you love when I’m amazing. Come with me. I’d like to cuff you to me--no, I’d sew our hands together, and then you’d follow me everywhere and it’d be wonderful. I wouldn’t really, of course, but you know what I mean. There’s more I’d like to tell you, and it would all make your lips curl up in that little smile you have that looks a little bit confused but also like you love me, which you don’t, not again, or not yet, but if you came with me you might. Come with me.”

Instead, he says, “John.”

John smiles at him and agrees to see the flat. Sherlock could _fly_ home.

\---

Within hours of having John near again, Sherlock gets to take John to a crime scene. It’s _perfect_. It is very nearly every single thing Sherlock could have wanted ever. John laughs and says “amazing” when Sherlock is amazing, and tells him things about the dead woman that Sherlock could have figured out himself, but it’s different because it’s _John_ doing it. It feels like discovering a lost collaboration between Bach and Handel. It is _everything_. Sherlock is positively giddy.

He must not lose it.

\---

Sherlock is still a bit disoriented by how _fantastic_ everything is when the cabbie says, “Do a lot of drugs, Mr. Holmes?” and has to blink for a second to--

He wakes in an abandoned classroom with a bottle of pills in front of him and the cabbie tapping a gun against his forehead.

_That was somewhat...unexpected._

The cabbie turns out to be a proper genius, which is refreshing, and connected to people in higher places who’ve taken an interest in Sherlock, which is _exhilarating_. More relevantly, the gun he’s trained on Sherlock’s head is fake, so Sherlock tells him he’ll take the gun, please, and stalks away from his chair.

“All the same,” the cabbie says to his retreating form, “which one would you have picked?”

Sherlock hesitates.

“Just so I know if I could’ve beat you. Which one?”

Sherlock turns.

As he passes the cabbie, he swipes the bottle from in front of him.

“Oh,” the cabbie says with a contained smirk. “Interesting.”

Sherlock takes his seat again. He spills the single pill into his palm and holds it up to the light.

_It wouldn’t be terrible,_ he thinks. _Being wrong, this one time. I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t live long enough to realize. And it was...good, just before._

The pill touches his lip a moment before the window explodes and a red stain punches through the cabbie’s shoulder. Sherlock reels backward, blinks for a moment, and runs to the shattered window.

Across the way, he sees a small figure in a dark jacket disappearing into the hall.

\---

Sherlock is able to put up with the police for precisely as long as it takes him to spot John in the crowd. He hops down out of the back of the ambulance. Lestrade stops mid-sentence.

“Hey! Sherlock, I’m not done!”

“Oh, for the love of--look, I’m in shock, I’ve got a blanket!”

He strides off and tosses the shock blanket into the open window of a police car, knowing full well Lestrade won’t follow him. John’s gaze is steady and unblinking as Sherlock steps close. Too close, frankly, but it’s all part of a plan.

“We should go back to the flat,” he says. “You’ll need to clean your gun. I doubt you’d serve time, but let’s avoid the court case.”

“Sherlock Holmes, you are absolutely the _biggest fucking moron.”_

Sherlock starts with surprise.

John’s expression is illegible. There’s a tightness around the corners of his lips that might be amusement, and a crease in his brow that could be concern or anger, and tension under his eyes that may be critical, or something of the sort.

He doesn’t stop thinking until John grips his shoulders, pulls him forwards and kisses him.

Sherlock can tell that John meant it to be hard and sharp, a punishment of a kiss, sneering into Sherlock’s mouth. But he can’t maintain it for long. His lips soften and he sighs. It’s quiet, but it’s a step. It’s a bloody leap for mankind, that, and Sherlock gives a little shuddering moan. There’s _so much,_ his heart hammering in his throat and the fabric of John’s coat lapels under his fingers and the way John’s face smells (beer and red spaghetti sauce from dinner, aftershave, sweat, clean water like from a mountain wellspring), the fireworks in his chest, and above all else, feeling like he’s been in a fucking _coma_ for years and is now, finally, waking up.

John breaks the kiss, turning his head away with a nervous laugh. Sherlock grits his teeth against the urge to whine and kiss him again.

“I...don’t think this is the place, do you?” he says with a wry smile.

Sherlock looks around. Several policeman are watching with looks of unrestrained shock. Sally Donovan looks as though she might sprain something.

“No,” Sherlock muses. “I suppose not.”

“Come on,” John says. He jerks his head toward the road and holds out his hand. “Let’s get a cab. Preferably a psychopath-free one, if you don’t mind.”

Sherlock grins and takes John’s hand.

** locks for my keys and keys for my locks **

John should perhaps be worried that his first call was not to the police, but to Mycroft Holmes. He understands that when one’s arguably sociopathic potential flatmate and ex-boyfriend is kidnapped by a suspected killer, one phones 999. You do not, generally, first call the number on a small, curiously empty business card that rings you through to a number you suspect is rarely answered by the recipient and not a personal assistant.

Mycroft was more helpful anyways. Gave John an address and heavily implied that any potential official charges would never make it to a courtroom (though he would naturally prefer it if such charges never arose in the first place).

John arrives to the wrong building at just the right time to shoot a serial killer in the back and stop Sherlock from killing himself. It feels better than it should, he has to admit. And then he goes and makes it even better by telling his beautiful, brilliant, _idiotic_ omega he’s a moron, and then kisses him in front of half of Scotland Yard.

_Who’d ever need heroin?_ he thinks, and inhales Sherlock’s sigh.

\---

In the cab, Sherlock sits too close to John and fidgets with his gloves until John reaches over, links his arm through Sherlock’s, takes hold of his hand and interlaces their fingers. Sherlock remains rigid and still for a moment, fingers twitching and holding John’s too tightly. John squeezes his hand a little and Sherlock loosens his grip. His posture is still stiff, awkward, uncomfortable.

John gently scratches up and down Sherlock’s hand, following the bones and the hollows between, the veins and bumps and scars both old and new.

Gradually, Sherlock relaxes.

Over Chinese, Sherlock requests (demands) permission from John to interrogate him on the subject of modern military culture, which John grants and Sherlock promptly abuses. John retaliates by exacting several housekeeping-related promises from Sherlock, mostly pertaining to the state of the fridge. They stumble back up the stairs into their flat _(their_ flat!) chortling about Mycroft’s delusions of heterosexuality as if they’re still seventeen, and John doesn’t realize what he’s doing until he notices that he’s still holding Sherlock’s hand.

He looks down at their entwined fingers.

“It has to be different,” he says. “This time.”

“Yes,” says Sherlock. “I had assumed as much.”

“You’ve got to let me--in.” John shakes his head. That’s not exactly what he wanted to say. But it’s close enough, so he plunges on. “I can’t go through all that again. I mean it, Sherlock. I can’t. I _won’t.”_

Sherlock’s face is inscrutable. “I--I know,” he says, his voice achingly small. “I didn’t _mean_ to. I never--it was just--everything was _wrong,_ then. Not you, _you_ weren’t, you’re never wrong, not that way, but...everything else. I didn’t know how to--I didn’t understand that--oh, never mind.”

He tries to whirl away, stalk off, but John doesn’t let go of his hand. Instead, he tugs Sherlock in, brings his free hand up to Sherlock’s face and cups his cheek.

“Hey,” he says gently. “Okay. I get it.”

“You _don’t.”_

“Maybe. But I’m close, or I think I am.” Sherlock softens into John’s touch a little, though his eyes are still wary. “Look, Sherlock. The fact is that we tried to live without each other, and it didn’t work. You’re-- _inside_ me, you daft bastard, and I couldn’t get you out if I tried. And you’re--it’s not good for you to be alone, you know. Me neither.”

Sherlock nods.

“Last time, it didn’t work,” John says gently, “because we were both of us trying to be normal, and we’re not, and because we are absolutely the _worst_ communicators.”

Sherlock laughs, high and nervous. John strokes his thumb across Sherlock’s cheekbone. Sherlock’s eyes flutter shut for a moment, then open again, softer, calmer. Like soothing a wild animal.

“I mean, it’s pretty clear that we’re appallingly codependent. I need you, and I need danger, and before, it was...bad, because _you_ were the danger, I couldn’t keep you safe because what was hurting you was _you,_ and it was like a short circuit and I couldn’t cope. And you need me and you need something for your lovely, ridiculous mind to do and you could only have one or the other.”

“It’s different now,” Sherlock says swiftly. “It is, I promise. It’s _perfect_ now.”

John smiles. “It’s good, isn’t it?”

Sherlock grins.

John’s fingers brush back and forth across Sherlock’s cheek. His eyes flutter briefly shut and then open again. “I don’t expect you to talk about your feelings, or anything like that.” Sherlock snorts. John smiles encouragingly. “But if you’re--if you get...like you get, would you let me help? Please?”

Sherlock’s mouth twists. He gives a brief nod. John smiles.

“Good,” he says. “So there’s supposed to be lots of trust, and waiting, and making sure we’re okay, but we’re not getting younger, so...d’you mind if we skip that?” His face softens. “Can I just...kiss you again? Is that alright?”

“Yes,” Sherlock whispers. _“Yes.”_

John smiles. “Good.”

John’s hand is still on Sherlock’s cheek. He strokes gently, brings his other hand up, takes Sherlock’s face between his palms, tips Sherlock’s head down and cautiously kisses him.

He tries for sweet and chaste and innocent, but as soon as their lips connect, Sherlock lets out a high, small moan, almost a whimper, and clutches at John’s waist and John’s heart pounds and pounds and _pounds_.

He presses his thumbs into the hollows of Sherlock’s cheeks in a gentle request. Sherlock’s lips part gladly. John licks his way into Sherlock’s mouth and groans with relief. His hands drop to Sherlock’s shoulders and grip tightly, because he feels like he’s going to faint. He can’t imagine what it’s like for Sherlock, who’s winding his arms around John’s back and tugging him closer, trying to lock their bodies together, to maximize contact. It’s good, _so_ good, almost _too_ good already, and it’s only a kiss. John breaks the contact of mouth to mouth for a moment to gasp “yes, oh _God_ yes, I’d forgotten,” and Sherlock makes a hungry little sound like a sob and crushes their mouths back together, desperate and greedy.

Sherlock cups the base of John’s skull and tilts his head back, deepening the kiss, and stars flash behind John’s eyelids. His hands drop to Sherlock’s arse. Sherlock gasps and presses his hips forward, bringing his pelvis flush with John’s. The contact between the growing hardness of their cocks feels like a pulse of electricity. John groans, and he’s not sure whether it’s out of satisfaction or avarice.

There is warmth spreading throughout John’s torso, radiating down his limbs, glowing in his cheeks. They need to sit down, and soon, or John may fall over, and _God,_ his leg doesn’t hurt at _all,_ he feels _perfect,_ he could absolutely fucking _fly_.

“Please,” Sherlock says against John’s lips. “Please, oh, _please,_ I need--”

“Shh, I’ve got you, love, I’ve--” He kisses Sherlock again and grimaces when he breaks contact, while Sherlock makes a frustrated sound and grabs at his hips. “Come on, let’s--bed.”

Sherlock whines and clings to John’s waist. “I--I can’t--”

John releases Sherlock’s shoulders. It feels like an incision. He winces and takes Sherlock’s hands instead. “Come on. I’m not going anywhere. Well. The bedroom.”

Sherlock’s cheekbones are flushed. John bites back the urge to taste them.

“Bed,” Sherlock says breathlessly.

John leads him partway down the hall, crowds him against a wall, kisses him while they toe their shoes off and kick them towards the landing, and pushes him into his bedroom. The backs of Sherlock’s knees hit the edge of the bed and he collapses onto it, pulling John down over him. John straddles Sherlock’s thighs and kisses him slowly as he tugs Sherlock’s shirt out of his trousers. He unbuttons it clumsily, fumbling at several buttons. When he tries to strip it off, the still-buttoned cuffs catch at Sherlock’s wrists. Sherlock snarls impatiently and practically _yanks_ the buttons free. John strips off his jumper as Sherlock flings his shirt into a corner. Sherlock grits his teeth at the sight of the buttons on John’s shirt and scowls as he works them open as quickly as he can.

John takes the opportunity to bury his fingers in Sherlock’s dark curls. “Missed that,” he says, stroking gently. “Missed you.”

Sherlock’s gotten John’s shirt open. John has to let him go to get it off. He does, hating every second of it, but now his shirt’s off and Sherlock is diving at John’s trousers.

“I want you,” John says, eyes glazed and voice husky. “Want to fucking _eat_ you.”

Sherlock growls and strips John’s trousers and pants off his legs in one long motion. John sighs with relief as his cock springs free. Sherlock bites his lip, runs his hands up the insides of John’s legs, and pets up his shaft with the flat of one palm. John catches his hands and removes them, pressing a little kiss to the inside of one wrist.

“Not just yet,” John murmurs. He grins a little. “Later though. You can count on it.”

“Believe me,” says Sherlock, eyeing John’s cock hungrily, “I _absolutely_ am.”

John pushes Sherlock back down onto the bed and works his trousers down to his ankles. Sherlock kicks them into a corner, falls back, brings his knees up and lets his legs fall open. John crowds in towards him, the tops of his thighs lining up with the lush curves of Sherlock’s backside, and sucks at Sherlock’s collarbone. Sherlock arches up with a gasp and rolls his hips, rubbing his still-clothed erection against John’s stomach.

He can’t seem to decide what to do with his hands. One minute they’re buried in his hair, trying to trap the short strands between his fingers, and the next he’s scraping his nails up the short length of John’s back that’s within his reach. They settle at his shoulders, squeezing rhythmically with his thrusts up into John’s body.

John can feel the damp spot of precum at the tip of Sherlock’s cock even through thin shorts and the sweat beaded on his skin. He lets out a long, shaky breath and bites at the curve of Sherlock’s neck where it meets his shoulder, where his scent is strongest. Lust is sticking to his skin and wafting through the air and leaking from his cock.

“Fuck,” he swears. _“Fuck,_ I can’t wait to have you in heat again.”

Sherlock moans. His hands tighten, a silent plea of _yes, more, like that._

“Want to--want to smell you. Taste you. Want you fucking _dripping_ for me.”

Sherlock grimaces, grunts, clutches at John’s shoulders and thrusts his hips against John hard enough to lift him a few inches off the bed, and _shit_ that takes some core strength. Someday John is going to chew at those abs until Sherlock’s practically crying. Right now, he’s panting so hard John’s almost concerned, but then Sherlock starts wriggling beneath him and scrabbling at his pants and crying _“off,_ John, for the love of _God_ get these _off_ me,” and concern goes out the window.

The sound Sherlock makes as John peels his pants down to his thighs is almost a sob. He has to sit up to throw them off the bed. The cold chasm of air that yawns open between them feels simply _monstrous,_ but John takes his time all the same.

He palms his hand lightly up Sherlock’s cock. The response is immediate. Sherlock arches his back and fists his hands in the bedsheets with a long, low groan.

“Oh God,” he says loudly. _“Fuck me,_ John, _please,_ fuck me _now.”_

John shivers. He would, he _absolutely_ would, but he hasn’t got any lube on him and he’s willing to bet Sherlock hasn’t, but _Christ_ he wants to. He pumps his hand slowly up and down Sherlock’s shaft once, twice, then stills. The effort is visible.

“I’ll see to you, love, don’t worry,” he says. “Come on. Spread your legs.”

Sherlock welcomes him in.

Naked, the sensation of their erections fitting flush with each other is almost incapacitating. Sherlock thrusts up immediately. John pins him down at the waist with one hand so he can work the other between their bodies and wrap it around both their shafts. John’s legs tremble and his mouth opens in a silent, voiceless cry. Sherlock _whines_ with need.

Sherlock wants fast. John intends to make it slow. He doesn’t count on Sherlock running a foot up the back of his thigh and scraping his nails down his spine and whispering _“harder,_ _John,_ _harder,”_ and John whispers back _“mine, mine, you’re mine,”_ and so it doesn’t go so slowly after all.

_“Yes,_ yes, _yours,_ John, I’m-- _John--”_

Sherlock has to bend his neck for them to kiss, but every time John tries to sit back Sherlock whines and pulls him back down. He gasps for breath around John’s mouth, moaning loudly on every exhale. He’s shaking. They’re both shaking. There’s a cramp in the back of John’s calf and he strongly suspects his stamina is failing him, can practically _feel_ the lactic acid building up in his muscles, and then Sherlock cups John’s arse with both hands, pulls him in _hard,_ and with a shudder and a shout, starts to come.

John feels the wet spurt over his hand, the full-body spasms of Sherlock’s orgasm rolling through his body, and it’s enough. His vision goes dark around the edges as his whole body stiffens and shakes through orgasm. He’s shouting, something along the lines of _“yes,_ Sherlock, _God,_ _yes,_ _fuck,_ I love you, I _love_ you, _love you,”_ but he’s fairly sure it’s not at all coherent. His face flares white-hot. The electric glow races through his veins, down his limbs and through his fingers. His fucking _toes_ are curling in on themselves. The hand that’s not still stroking him through the most mind-blowing orgasm of his goddamn _life_ is clutching the sheets so hard it _hurts_.

Gradually, the shaking slows. John shivers through a few aftershocks, one or two dry twitches of his cock, and then sinks down onto the bed. He throws an arm over Sherlock, who seems to have not yet fully remembered how to breathe, and wipes his sticky hand on the side of the mattress. Sherlock’s chest shakes with silent laughter. John makes a halfhearted attempt to roll off the bed to clean up and is not entirely sorry when Sherlock catches him and pulls him back.

“No,” he croaks, voice gone hoarse hoarse. “Don’t.”

John smiles and throws a leg over Sherlock’s waist. “Fine. Then you’re doing the laundry in the morning.”

Sherlock lets out a low hum of disapproval.

“You are _so.”_

“Shower first.”

“As if I’m that easily convinced.”

Sherlock snorts. John flicks his nipple in revenge. Sherlock pouts, but does not retaliate.

There’s a long stretch of silence. Sherlock idly strokes up and down John’s back. He stops near John’s shoulder, at the exit wound, and traces the whorls of scar tissue.

“All my things are back at my old place,” John says. “No pyjamas.”

“Pity,” says Sherlock without even attempting sincerity.

John yawns. “I’ll get it in the morning. Pull the sheet up. No point getting the duvet filthy too.”

Sherlock drags the duvet up anyways. John opens one eye and raises his eyebrow in silent admonishment before curling up against him, his back to Sherlock’s front. Sherlock’s arms come up to lock around John’s body quite naturally.

“So do I,” Sherlock says quietly.

John smiles. “I know.”

****

**Author's Note:**

> There's a bit of a Buffy line in here, more or less. I'm a lesbian, it's a Willow/Tara bit, it worked, I couldn't _not,_ ya know?
> 
> The original: "There's so much to work through. Trust has to build again... on both sides. You have to learn if you're even the same people you were, if you can fit into each other's lives. It's a long and important process and can we just skip it? Can you just be kissing me now?"
> 
> After the debacle of Harry Potter Fanfic Authors Who Shall Not Be Named Because Now They Have Lawyers And Scare Me, I thought I'd better credit that...


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